Re: [UC] Update on Sansom Street Gentrification, er, Development

[Krfapt]

In a message dated 4/27/2004 10:09:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: So, did I miss your report on this event? Sorry... It turned out to be a non-event. Rather than the grandiose plan to displace people from their homes so badly received last fall, this was about a private developer who bought some vacant houses in the 4400 block of Sansom for too much money, and is planning to fix them up and sell them for (are you ready?) $250,000 each or thereabouts. Oddly (or not, depending on how you view these sorts of things), the developers couldn't make it to the meeting themselves. So Greg Montenaro of the SHCA and UCHS filled in.   Greg said he was familiar with the project because he's been involved in some unspecified way with the financing -- although he never did say who was putting up the money, whether it was community development funding (you know, the type that's supposed to go to support affordable housing in marginal neighborhoods), and so forth. Or, maybe he said it but I was too busy making sarcastic comments and promulgating my famous misinformation to the people near me to hear it.   Someone asked the names of the developers, and Greg claimed not to know. If you find this hard to believe, you haven't dealt much with the clique that used to get away with the pretense of representing "the community" hereabouts. The discussion about the developers, though, led me to form the personal opinion -- and I could be wrong, it's been known to happen -- that these non-local developers ("absentee developers," Neil?) haven't a clue about such things as the Alexander School catchment area, the produce trucks that park at 44th & Sansom every day and have huge popular support, the locus of Mill Creek (not the Tavern, the watercourse), or the eagerness with which rich folks will buy pricey homes next door to properties that are boarded up and whose destiny is fraught with uncertainty.   Respectfully submitted,   Alan Krigman   PS: Be sure to mark the date, Tuesday, June 8, of the SHCA general & election meeting at which a motion will be presented to withdraw the Association's support of the Spruce Hill historic district nomination. Place to be announced as soon as the SHCA gets around to letting everyone know.